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Kellie Lunney

Kellie Lunney covers federal pay and benefits issues, the budget process and financial management. After starting her career in journalism at Government Executive in 2000, she returned in 2008 after four years at sister publication National Journal writing profiles of influential Washingtonians. In 2006, she received a fellowship at the Ohio State University through the Kiplinger Public Affairs in Journalism program, where she worked on a project that looked at rebuilding affordable housing in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. She has appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NPR and Feature Story News, where she participated in a weekly radio roundtable on the 2008 presidential campaign. In the late 1990s, she worked at the Housing and Urban Development Department as a career employee. She is a graduate of Colgate University.

February 3, 2017
The General Services Administration is seeking proposals for a massive new contract it will award this summer for its governmentwide charge card payment program. The agency issued a request for proposals on Wednesday for GSA SmartPay 3, the next iteration of a nearly 20-year-old program that provides the government with...

February 2, 2017
If confirmed as Veterans Affairs secretary, Dr. David Shulkin said he plans to pursue “far greater accountability” for the department’s workforce at the same time he will seek help from Congress to recruit and retain high performers. Shulkin said “a basic function of any chief executive” is to have the...

February 2, 2017
President Trump’s nominee to lead the Veterans Affairs Department on Wednesday said he would go back to the White House to ask for more job exemptions from the hiring freeze if necessary. Dr. David Shulkin said if the veterans’ disability and pension claims backlog starts spiking again and it impacts...

January 31, 2017
The Defense Department is finishing up guidance that addresses which civilian jobs it plans to exempt from President Trump’s hiring freeze, according to a spokesman. The departmentwide guidance “will provide additional information with respect to exemptions related to the department’s national security and public safety responsibilities,” said Pentagon spokesman Johnny...

January 30, 2017
The Defense Department is finishing up guidance that addresses which civilian jobs it plans to exempt from President Trump’s hiring freeze, according to a spokesman. The departmentwide guidance “will provide additional information with respect to exemptions related to the department’s national security and public safety responsibilities,” said DoD spokesman Johnny...

January 27, 2017
The Veterans Affairs Department on Friday released a list of wide-ranging jobs it intends to exempt from President Donald Trump’s governmentwide hiring freeze, from medical and law enforcement personnel to cemetery caretakers. The VA has carved out approximately 100 or so positions as exempt from the freeze because they are...

January 26, 2017
The Republican congressional committee chairmen overseeing Veterans Affairs are seeking assurance from the president that certain jobs at the department are exempt from the federal hiring freeze. Rep. David “Phil” Roe of Tennessee and Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia sent a Jan. 26 letter to President Trump asking that he...

January 25, 2017
The House majority leader on Wednesday put a face on the Washington, D.C., swamp the Trump administration has vowed to drain: the career federal workforce. “Washington’s many agencies, bureaus and departments propagate rules that weigh down businesses, destroy jobs, and limit American freedoms,” wrote Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in...

January 24, 2017
President Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget said on Tuesday he wants a “high-morale, high-performance” federal workforce, and that he plans to look for ways to better reward top employees and hold poor performers accountable. “I think the federal government probably could do better in dealing...

January 23, 2017
The outgoing Obama administration on Jan. 18 issued a memorandum to agencies encouraging them to figure out why Hispanics remain underrepresented within the federal workforce, particularly at more senior levels. The Office of Personnel Management and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission called on agencies with at least 1,000 full-time employees...